


Once as Soft as Water

by lustmordred



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-03
Updated: 2011-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-24 07:03:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lustmordred/pseuds/lustmordred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers weighing it in his mind, which would give out first, Dean or his beloved Impala. Used to be Sam would bet every penny he had and his soul too on Dean outliving that damn car. He was always too fucking mean to die easy. He's not so sure now and it scares the hell out of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once as Soft as Water

Sam pulls over to the side of the road somewhere in New Mexico between Las Cruces and Alamogordo. Dean started getting sick in Arizona and made Sam drive while he took a nap. Sam took a wrong turn intending to follow a road on the map that doesn’t really seem to exist and now they’re lost on a road that _does_ exist but isn‘t on the map.

In the back seat, Dean fumbles with the door handle, yanks it, and finally gets the door open enough that he falls out.

“Shit,” Sam mutters, getting out of the car and rounding the hood to… do something. He doesn’t know what exactly but he feels like he should be doing something. “Dean, can I…?”

Dean turns his head to look up at him from where he’s kneeling in the dirt. He wipes a hand over his mouth and licks bile from his bottom lip with a grimace. “What, Sammy? You wanna hold my hair back for me?”

Sam frowns and leans against the side of the car. “Guess not. You gonna make it?”

Dean smiles grimly and begins to slowly get to his feet. “Count on it,” he says. “More lives than a fucking cat, remember?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sam says. And he does remember. Sometimes he finds the knowledge a little depressing. “You want to drive?”

Dean holds up one of his hands, palm flat and fingers spread, showing Sam how it shakes. “You really want me to drive?”

“No,” Sam says. He pushes away from the side of the car and opens the door for Dean to get back in.

“My prince charming,” Dean says, but it’s a feeble attempt at his usual sarcasm.

“Shut up, Dean,” Sam says. He closes the door on Dean’s response and goes back around the hood. “You alright now?”

“Meh,” Dean says.

Sam shrugs and starts the car again. Good enough.

~~*~~

Sam gets them turned around and manages to find his way back to Las Cruces, where he rents them a room at a motel with no name, just MOTEL in chipped bright yellow paint on a sign over the office. He leaves Dean in the car to go check them in and spends the next fifteen minutes avoiding the sexual advances of the establishment’s _secretary_ while trying not to offend her.

“So you’re from where did you say? Oregon?” the girl says. “Well ain’t that a coincidence? I’ve got this uncle from up that way; he bought himself a big piece of property with a lake on it and he…”

Sam loses track of the plot of her story after about thirty seconds and just tries to nod in the right places while not following his instinctive desire to smack her hand away when she runs her fake fingernails down his arm. Interestingly enough, this somehow makes her voice easier to listen to.

Dean pokes his head in the door of the office while the secretary—Betty, she tells him and Sam has to wonder if she spells it like Boop or with an “I” on the end—is in the middle of another _fascinating_ tale about some visit she took to New Jersey. Dean looks pale, sweaty, and exhausted, but his eyes settle on the girl’s hand on Sam’s arm and narrow dangerously.

“Sam?” he says. “What’s the holdup?”

Sam glances at the girl, then back at Dean and raises an eyebrow. _You’re looking at it._

Dean flashes the secretary as charming a smile as he can manage. “Hey there, darlin’. Mind if I cut in? We’ve been on the road a couple of days and could both use a rest, you know?”

“Oh,” the girl says, looking between them. Something in the way they look at each other—speaking without uttering a word—or in the way they move around each other—with a familiarity that tells of intimacy—clues her in and her blue eyes widen a little. “Oh,” she says again. “Sure thing. Here’s your key. You’re in room one oh five.”

“Room one oh five, gotcha,” Sam says, taking the key from her. 105 in a place like this means room number 5, which has always kind of amused Sam.

“Gimme the key,” Dean says when Sam goes to move the car. “I’ll just walk.”

Sam shrugs and tosses him the room key. He moves the car and grabs a bag of salt off the floor in the back before going inside.

Dean’s laying face-down on the bed with his arms folded under his chin and Sam’s brow furrows a little in worry. He’s pale under his tan, his breathing looks heavier than usual and he’s sweating so bad the hair at his temples is wet.

“You’ve got a fever,” Sam says.

Dean turns his head on his arm and looks at him. His eyes are kind of glassy. “Salt the door and windows, Sammy.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam says, crouching by the door to do just that. “You’ve still got a fever.”

“Maybe I’ll die, huh?” Dean says. He doesn’t sound that interested. “Do you think they’d let me?”

“Who?” Sam asks, standing to go around the room and put salt on the windowsills.

“Any of them,” Dean says.

Sam frowns. He can’t think about that shit right now. This Heaven and Hell _bullshit_ is just going to have to wait. “You’re not dying,” Sam says.

He tosses the bag of salt on the table by the door and crosses the room to get up on the bed with Dean. Dean grumbles against his pillow but turns his face into Sam’s hand when he touches him. “Going to give you my sick if you’re not careful,” he says, voice cracked and parched sounding. “Should have got a double this time.”

“No point,” Sam says, stretching out on the worn coverlet beside Dean. He leans on one elbow and runs his hand up his back, pushing his shirt up. It sticks in Dean’s sweat and Sam thinks about taking it off him. Then he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t do that. Maybe Dean needs blankets and warmth and maybe sweating the fever out would be better.

He doesn’t really know that much about fevers other than what he’s seen on TV and read about in passing. He thinks maybe there are different types or different levels of fever, but he doesn’t know whether to dump Dean in a bathtub of ice or go out and get him a heating pad.

“Sam?” Dean mumbles.

“Yeah?”

“Stop petting me.”

Sam sighs and takes his hand away from Dean’s back. “Go to sleep, Dean.”

“Man, I’m tryin’,” Dean grumbles. “Stop trying to molest me.”

“Dude, fuck off,” Sam says.

He rolls onto his back and puts his arms behind his head. He stares up at the ceiling and traces the water marks in the cheap cork tiles. He thinks of clouds and finds an elephant looking down at him. A snake eating its own tail. A dog with three legs. He wonders how many people came into this room before them and acted out scenes of their lives upon the sheets on this bed. He remembers a time when he used to ache with want, thinking how Dean’s his _brother_ and things aren’t supposed to be like this.

He smiles faintly to himself and closes his eyes. He remembers the one time he got really sick when he was a kid and how his dad told him that only one of two things happen when you’re sick: you get better or you die. He’d thought it was a pretty fucked up philosophy when he was throwing up his guts into a McDonalds’ bag outside of Birmingham, Alabama.

He still thinks it’s kind of fucked up, but now it’s Dean and Dean looks like shit and it’s more like truth than philosophy.

~~*~~

Sam sleeps in the bed with Dean at night and watches him through his sickness during the day. In his sleep, in the delirium of his fever, Dean clings to Sam like a scared child. He doesn’t seem afraid, though, but he shakes and sweats and whimpers as if he’s dreaming and Sam murmurs comforting nonsense to him like even if he could hear it would matter.

Sam tries to feed Dean chicken broth a couple of times, but Dean just ends up wearing it and after the third attempt, he stops. If Dean gets better, he can feed himself, if he doesn’t… well, if he doesn’t, it isn’t going to matter.

After two days of this, Sam thinks about trying to bathe him because all the sweat is starting to make Dean smell really funky. He knows it’s stupid and not of any real importance but he feels pretty goddamn useless watching Dean suffer like this without being able to do anything to help it. Dean, who won’t admit to being sick let alone go to a doctor unless there’s a serious risk of losing a limb or an eye. Sometimes not even then. _That_ Dean is sicker than Sam has ever seen him and that right there is enough to make him feel scared and small. So maybe it’s stupid, but he considers dragging Dean into the bath with him anyway because at least he’d feel like he was doing _something_.

But even though he wants to and it would maybe make _Sam_ feel a little better, he doesn’t do it. He wets a cloth with cool water and washes Dean’s face with it, patting near his temples as he squirms on the bed. Dean whines and mutters about demons and poison and of all the fucked up things, _fairies_ , all the time moving his face toward that cool cloth. Then he passes out and Sam waits for him to wake up… or not.

Sam’s getting really scared on the third day when Dean doesn’t do much of anything but lay in the bed, moaning and talking to himself under his breath. Sometimes Sam catches a few phrases or words and sometimes Dean mutters them right in his ear. They’re a strange mixture of spells, incantations and simple recipes. Every once in a while it’s like Dean’s talking to their dad and _that_ really scares the shit out of Sam. He doesn’t even want to think about that or what that might mean. He’d really rather listen to how many cups of water for every cup of milk is in boxed macaroni and cheese.

Later that evening, Sam’s laying there beside him with Dean sweating all over him and clutching at his clothes when he thinks about the angels. Not the pretty winged ladies in white everyone has figurines of on their mantles; the real angels. The angels that God used to send to deal out his wrath back in the Old Testament days. The fire and brimstone raining angels. He thinks about them and he thinks maybe if he could pray… but he can’t. Maybe he’s just not the praying kind. Maybe he can’t do it because there’s a difference between _believing_ and _knowing_ and Sam knows a lot of things most people don't know, but he doesn't believe in anything anymore. Or maybe he can’t bring himself to do it because even knowing what he knows, talking to God still feels like talking into empty air.

He wants to tell Dean he’s sorry for that too. When Dean nuzzles up against his side and shivers, he wants to be able to say any prayer or make whatever deal he can to change it because he’s almost certain that his brother’s dying. But he can’t do that. And it’s funny, in a way, how the idea of dealing with demons sounds more appealing than trying to bargain with God.

Thinking like that, about the futility of prayer, or at least, the futility of _his_ prayers, he looks down at Dean and the fever’s broken. The flush in his skin is fading and his body is literally beaded with sweat, a lot of which is soaking Sam’s clothes and the bed.

“Hi,” Sam says, stroking wet hair back from Dean’s face.

Dean’s fingers tighten against Sam’s sides at the sound of his voice. He runs his tongue over his top lip and makes a face. “Hi,” he says. “What time is it?”

Sam shrugs. “Night time.”

Dean looks around, then drops back weakly against Sam. “What day is it?”

“Sunday, I think,” Sam says. “How do you feel?”

Dean makes a low sound in his throat and closes his eyes, settling back against Sam with his head resting on his chest. “Like a slug in a saltshaker,” he mutters.

Sam chuffs soft laughter and feels some of the tension he’s been holding onto loosen somewhere around his belly like melting ice. “Just means you’re alive,” he says.

“Yeah, I guess,” Dean says. He sounds almost annoyed about it.

“Go to sleep, Dean,” Sam says.

“Trying to, Sammy, if you’d shut up and let me,” Dean grumbles.

His fingers are kneading at Sam’s sides and he’s so lax that he’s a dead weight against him. It’s so comforting to have him there and _lucid_ that Sam doesn’t even roll his eyes at Dean’s pissiness. He lays there listening to Dean breathe, feeling the reassuring thump of his heart and the cold of his sweat drying on their clothes and it isn’t long before Dean’s breath evens out and his heart slows back to normal. When Sam knows that he’s sleeping he finally closes his eyes and dares to try to get some rest for himself. This time, the worst is over. This time, he’s alive. Maybe Sam can sleep now.

~~*~~

They’re in a bar in Albuquerque when Sam starts to think about leaving again. Not leaving _Dean_. He couldn’t do that now even if he wanted to and he knows that. He’s known it for a long time. Their lives have become intertwined like ivy through the fingers of an elm. But he starts thinking about leaving and what it might mean for _both_ of them.

He remembers Dean sick and sweating and how much it scared him. Not only the sickness, but how vulnerable they both were to the things they hunted with Dean like that. But Dean wasn’t sick because of demons or angels or vampires or anything else like that. He was sick because he was human and mortal, he didn’t take very good care of himself, they didn’t live well and he was constantly stressed the fuck out. He had gotten sick because something was going around somewhere and they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with Dean’s immune system on the fritz.

It’s a frightening reminder that no matter what they do or where their lives are at in all of this Armageddon crap, they can still die of natural causes. Monsters may be the most likely things that can kill them, but they aren’t the _only_ things.

He looks at Dean across the barroom, leaning over a pool table, and he follows the way Dean’s coat stretches over his body, knowing how thin and unwell he looks when all of those layers of padding are stripped away. He watches him line up his shot, marking how the tendons move in his hands and watching the way his blood beats against the curve of his jaw in his throat. He thinks how Dean’s body is so light now compared to a few weeks ago, how ever since he was sick, he’s so much easier to manhandle. He wonders what would happen if they came upon the wrong kind of demon or monster right now. Would Dean be okay? What if he is and what if he gets healthy again? How long before it all catches up to him? How long before every old bullet wound and broken bone becomes an ache in his body that’s a chink in his armor?

He thinks maybe Dean has already thought of all of this and knows what’s coming. He can’t really remember a time, even when they were young, when that awareness wasn’t right there in his brother’s eyes. He thinks probably Dean has never expected to grow old or die of natural causes. Maybe he doesn’t even want to. He tries to think back far enough and wonders if little boy Dean even thought he was going to grow up.

The idea makes him kind of sad for hypothetically fatalistic little boy Dean.

Dean gives up on his game and tosses his stick to someone else before crossing the room to where Sam’s standing, leaning with his hip against the bar, nursing a beer that’s gone warm. “You just lost me twenty bucks,” Dean says. He takes Sam’s beer out of his hand, drinks, and makes a face. “Gross.”

“No one said you had to drink it. This _is_ a bar, get your own,” Sam says, taking it back from him.

“Gladly,” Dean says. He leans over the bar until the bartender notices him and gets him a beer.

Sam puts his down on the bar and forgets about it. He didn’t really want it anyway, it was just something to hold. “How did _I_ lose you twenty bucks?”

Dean smiles a little and leans over his beer and Sam’s to put his face close to his ear and the curve of his shoulder. “I could feel you staring at me like this little electric shock between my shoulder blades.”

“Oh really?” Sam says. He notes the look on Dean’s face and the way his eyes dart again and again back to his mouth before meeting his gaze again. Dean wants to kiss him and Sam can see him seriously considering it right before he takes the decision away from him and kisses Dean instead. He turns his head and presses his mouth to Dean’s. It’s a quick kiss, no tongue, no passion, mostly done in play, but it amuses him to watch Dean’s eyes darken a little from it. It’s nice to be able to do that to someone, especially someone like his brother and see how it affects him just that way.

“You… are a fucking cock-tease, Sammy,” Dean informs him. He sits back and watches Sam out of the corners of his eyes as he finishes his beer.

“That wasn’t your cock,” Sam says flatly. He gives his warm beer to the bartender to dump out.

“It’d be nice if it was, though, huh?” Dean says and Sam looks at him just as he winks and puts his empty beer bottle down. “You coming?”

Sam lifts his brows and moves away from the bar, hands out. “By all means, lead the way,” he says.

Dean catches the edge of sarcasm in his voice and huffs out a breath as he starts for the door. “Never knew anyone else that gets as pissy as you do about the prospect of getting laid. Especially not when it’s damn near a sure thing.”

Sam moves up behind Dean as he’s leaving the bar and slips his arms around his waist almost making him stumble against a girl on her way through the door they’re leaving through. “I’m not pissy,” he murmurs against the back of Dean’s ear. He nuzzles into his hair and pulls Dean against him, walking him out of the bar. “I’m _teasing_ you.”

Dean’s eyes slip closed and he sways back against Sam with a longing sound in his throat before he thinks not to. Sam watches his head come up at the sound of approaching footsteps and knows the exact moment when he starts thinking it, though.

He starts thinking _no_ , thinking _not here_ , thinking even if people don’t know Sam’s his brother, they’ll still know Sam’s fucking him just from the way they’re standing and touching and _Dean_ will know. Somewhere in Dean’s fucked up little mind, that makes sense and while being fucked in the ass by his little brother doesn’t bother him the way it once did, the rest of it still bothers him. Because it’s still wrong and Dean’s always, deep down, had the heart of a boy scout. Boy scouts don’t have sex with their siblings. Sam was never a boy scout either, but he’s pretty sure there’s a rule about that somewhere.

Dean‘s suddenly tense against him and he puts a hand back to push away from him. “Sam…”

“Don’t,” Sam says. He tightens his arms around Dean’s waist so that Dean would have to make a scene and draw attention to get away from him. “Just… don’t.”

Dean draws in a breath, holds it and then lets it out. After he does this, he’s relaxed again. It feels forced now, but Sam takes what he can get.

“Can we go?” Dean asks.

Sam doesn’t move for a minute. He holds Dean there and makes him stay as two couples and a group of single female barflies pass them. He nuzzles the back of Dean’s neck until his eyes close again, then he runs his tongue over the spot until he feels goose bumps against his lips.

“Sam?” Dean hisses. “ _Sam_.”

Only when he thinks that Dean wants to go because he _wants_ to go, not because he’s afraid of being seen does Sam finally release him. He snatches the car keys from Dean‘s coat pocket and goes around him, flipping the keys on their ring as he walks. “You coming?” he calls over his shoulder.

~~*~~

Sam hasn't touched Dean since before he was sick and that was almost two weeks ago, but he could still see the way the illness wasted him no matter how many layers of clothing he wore to try and hide it. But Sam isn't really prepared for it and doesn't _know_ until he starts to undress Dean and he just keeps taking clothes off, waiting to find his body under there somewhere. When he does, when he finds skin and bone and can finally _see_ what the sickness and the stress and everything leading up to it all has done to him, he just stares. He stares until Dean starts to fidget uncomfortably under his gaze like he's thinking of putting his clothes back on.

Then he reaches out and runs a hand down Dean's side, allowing his fingers to slide into the spaces between his ribs and feel the way his lungs press against his skin as he breathes. "Jesus, Dean," Sam whispers.

"Look, let's just forget it," Dean mutters. He reaches for the last shirt Sam took off him and starts to put it back on.

"No," Sam says. He gently takes the shirt from him and tosses it aside, then he puts his hand on Dean's chest and pushes him back on the bed, crawling over him as he lays him down. He cups the back of Dean's neck in one hand and pulls his mouth up to lick at it as he works Dean back across the bed. "Let's not."

Dean makes a sound low and soft in his throat as he licks after Sam's tongue. Sam grasps his hips and pulls Dean into his lap so he's spread out on his back on the bed, his legs over Sam's thighs. He runs his hand up Dean's belly, along his sternum to his throat. He watches his eyes as he lets his fingers stroke there, petting over the heavy drumbeat of his heart.

It makes him sad to see Dean this way. He's wasted and small, slowly dying for these angels, these demons. He can look at Dean now and see it all like a translucent image set over the picture he has in his mind of his big brother. Dean, who was always so confident, so arrogant, so fucking _vital_. He's not broken now, not by a long shot, but he's _diminished_. Diminished, and not just in body, from what he used to be. He's wearing out and Sam is watching it happen by degrees. The sickness kind of jump-started his decline, but it was already happening.

He remembers weighing it in his mind, which would give out first, Dean or his beloved Impala. Used to be Sam would bet every penny he had and his soul too on Dean outliving that damn car. He was always too fucking mean to die easy. He's not so sure now and it scares the hell out of him.

He feels like these angels and demons are stealing Dean from him, little by little and pound by pound. He wants to take him back. He wants Dean, in all his aggravating glory, back. He wants the big brother who watched over him in school, the big brother who took his virginity on the hood of that fucking Impala, the big brother who idolized their father, who could shoot a shotgun before he could drive a car, who drinks too much and eats too little and no matter how drunk he gets, will still stagger to the bathroom to throw up—bitching the entire way. He'd rather have a _fight_ with Dean than have him back down and let Sam win just so he doesn't have to—which he's been doing a lot more lately.

Sam runs his hand back down Dean's body and leans over him to nuzzle his cheek. "Come away with me," he murmurs into his ear.

Dean tenses against him and sighs. He lifts a hand to run it through his hair and shakes his head. He doesn't even try to pretend he doesn't know what Sam's asking. "Where would we go, Sam?" he whispers back. "Tell me a place... where there are no demons. No ghosts. No wandering spirits. No vampires, werewolves, sirens, ghouls, goblins, monsters... angels... Do you know a place like that, Sammy?"

Sam frowns and lets out a softly shaking breath. "No," he says. He shifts on the bed and feels between them for his belt. Finding it, he pulls it free of the buckle and works his jeans open. "I don't care. We can... we could... pretend."

"Pretend what?" Dean asks. He leans up on one elbow and with his other hand, strokes his fingers into the back of Sam's hair. "Pretend not to know what we know? Do you think either of us could really do that?"

"I could," Sam says. He slides his hand down Dean's body, over his hip and along his thigh. He strokes the sensitive skin there at the inside of his thigh and smiles slowly to see Dean shiver. "So could you. People walk away from things every day, Dean."

Dean draws a leg up along Sam's side, hooks it around his waist and pulls him closer. His fingers pet through his shaggy hair and a look of sadness passes over his face. "Think about it, Sam," he says. "If it were a little girl and she might die. If we could save her with what we know. If it were a woman and she might lose her children, her husband... If it were someone you knew, someone you liked, and they were in danger. If you made a friend. If I did. Do you think you could still fucking pretend? Could you still walk away?"

Sam shakes his head and looks away from Dean at a spot on the sheet by his shoulder. "Maybe," he says. "If I knew what it would cost me if I didn't. Maybe I could."

Dean shakes his head, his eyes distant even though Sam's fingers are working their way up his thigh. "No," he says. "I know too much to walk away. So do you."

Sam sighs and looks back at Dean. "Fine," he says.

"What do you mean, 'fine'?" Dean asks, cocking his head suspiciously. "Just like that, you give up and it's fine?"

"No," Sam says. He shifts on the bed and shoves his jeans down his hips and off. "I haven't given up anything. Roll over."

Dean's eyebrows shoot up. "What?"

"On your side," Sam clarifies.

With Sam's hands on his waist to help turn him, Dean rolls to side. He looks at Sam over his shoulder and Sam pushes his hips up against his ass, pulling Dean against him as he moves them closer together.

"Way to change the subject, Sammy," Dean mumbles.

Sam chuckles into the back of his hair and presses a kiss to Dean's neck. "I'm not changing the subject."

Dean rolls his hips back, pushing his ass against Sam's lower belly. "What do you call that, then?"

"Distracting," Sam says. He runs the palm of his hand flat down Dean's spine, over the curve of his ass, and carefully works his fingers between their bodies until he can press one inside him. Dean's breath hitches and Sam's lips curve against the back of his neck. He nips the vertebrae there, then licks it and nuzzles into Dean's hair as he starts to stroke within him. "See how distracting that is?" He murmurs.

Dean shivers and his mouth falls open, panting as Sam adds a second finger and curves them inside him, stroking over his prostate. "Yes," he breathes. He squirms, pushing his ass back against Sam, demanding. "Yes... God, Sam."

"Now, how am I supposed to keep up my end of an argument," Sam whispers into Dean's ear, his breath hot on his neck, "If in the back of my mind..." He adds a third finger and twists, forcing a soft, half-swallowed whimper from Dean. "If in the back of my mind, all I can think about is getting inside you?"

"I don't know," Dean whispers roughly. Honestly, he doesn't even remember the question. "Sam... please..."

"It gives you something of an unfair advantage right out of the box, don't you think?" Sam asks. He withdraws his fingers and thrusts them back, putting his hips behind it for force.

Dean puts one arm back to grab at Sam, catching his hip and pulling at him, with the other hand he grasps the edge of the mattress and digs his fingers in. "Sammy... Oh fuck, please."

"Shhh, you'll wake the neighbors," Sam whispers into Dean's hair. He licks him, running his tongue between his shoulders and down as he shifts against him. He presses the head of his cock inside, waits for Dean to breathe out, and thrusts deep.

" _Jesus_ ," Dean hisses, breath leaving him in a rush. He pushes back against Sam and, panting against Dean's saliva wet skin, Sam meets him.

Sam laughs softly around the sounds in his throat and reaches up to grab the top of the mattress over Dean's shoulder. "These walls... are paper thin," Sam murmurs, moving his mouth along the back of Dean's neck to his ear."Be quiet or they'll think you're praying."

Using his hold on the mattress for leverage, he throws his weight into his next thrust. Dean moans and sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and Sam watches him, the way he shakes and bites so much back and he wants more than that. He releases the mattress and wraps his arm around Dean's waist, pulling him tight against his chest and stomach. He fits a leg between Dean's legs and forces it between them so that Dean has to lift his leg to hook it over Sam's, opening him more to the penetration.

"Sam, that's not..." Dean scrabbles at the bed beneath him to get a hand hold. He gets one but has it only for a moment before Sam's tumbling him over onto his knees. "You're going to... throw me on the floor if you don't fucking watch it."

Sam nuzzles him, pressing his face into the curve of Dean's shoulder, and rolls his hips. It's not quite a thrust, but it slides his dick right _there_ , stroking Dean's prostate. Dean's body tenses, contracts around him and he cries out.

"No, I'm not," Sam says, gasping. He reaches up and pets the damp hair back from Dean's face, sliding his wide hand down Dean's throat as he starts to move again.

Sam finds a rhythm to fuck him too that they can both keep and marvels at the way his brother's heart pounds against the palm of his hand with his pleasure. He moves his hand up Dean's chest, his arm around him to pull him back as he sits back. Dean's breath hitches, but he goes with him willingly, sitting back on him, head back on Sam's shoulder as Sam strokes his fingers along the pulse in his neck.

"Do you remember... the first time?" Sam asks, speaking against the back of his ear. "You picked me up from school..."

Dean's lips quirk in an amused half-smile. He remembers.

"Every kiss was like a cut in my mouth," Sam says. "There were others before that... but those were the first."

Dean sucks a breath through his teeth and shudders. He turns his face toward Sam's voice and opens his eyes. His eyes are dilated and bright, but Sam can see the memory lurking there. The knowledge and awareness of things; parts of themselves that siblings should never share with each other.

"I know," Dean says. He runs his tongue over Sam's mouth, nips his top lip and then catches his mouth in a kiss.

Sam doesn't kiss back right away. He let's Dean kiss him, let's Dean lure him into it. Then, when he can't _not_ kiss him back, when the pleasure building in his belly is so tight it absolutely must have an outlet or a place to hide, he kisses him back. He takes Dean's mouth like he takes his body, everything as much give as take and goes about kissing like it's just another dirty way to fuck. When Dean moans into his mouth, he bites at his lips and licks over his tongue and doesn't let him go. When Dean whimpers softly through his nose, his breath a wash over Sam's face, he swallows them down and growls back, arm tight around his waist as he thrusts into him.

Finally, with a low growl of his own, Dean bites him back and breaks the kiss to catch his breath. "I remember," he pants. He shudders and the muscles along his back jerk lightly like the pelt of a cat. "Don't stop, Sammy. Harder. Harder and I'll tell you what I remember. What I know..."

Sam chuckles softly and shoves Dean down on the bed. He moves over him, hips rolling as the muscles along his back flex, throwing some of his weight into it to get what Dean wants. "How's that?" he says. There's a taunting edge to the question, cut with just enough pleasure of his own to keep it from being insulting. He draws his hands down Dean's sides, along his ribs to hold his hips as he rides him. "What do you remember? What do you know?"

Dean pulls at the dingy bed sheets, then reaches up for the headboard before he remembers it's one of those fake things attached to the wall but not to the bed. "I remember... the sun on your belly. The sun on the hood of my car, how hot it was on your skin and I thought... it would burn you. But you never... said anything."

"It wasn't hot... just warm," Sam says. He remembers too and almost closes his eyes as he recalls the warmth of the painted metal against his back. "What else?"

"Your skin... you'd been sweating. I could taste it in your mouth." Dean pushes back against Sam until he can feel the biting press of his hipbones against his ass. "You whispered yes, yes, yes... over and over. Under... your breath."

Sam snaps his hips forward as Dean shoves back and forces a sound of deep pleasure from them both. "Would you have stopped... if I said anything else?"

"Yes," Dean says, turning his head to meet Sam's eyes, and Sam believes him.

Sam gentles his movements, slowing to deep, long strokes that have Dean shivering under him and pushing back to make him move faster. "Shhh, stop it," Sam says, chiding. He runs his hand up and down Dean's back, feeling the way his muscles jump at the touch. "What do you _know_?"

"So much," Dean says, practically hissing it.

There's a tightening of Dean's body around him and Sam moans. He loves how he can feel that, how Dean's closer. How the pleasure grows like the rate of his heartbeat. Sam keeps his slow, deep rhythm, draws Dean's orgasm from him gradually. He reaches around him to hold his cock, squeezes once, drawing a frustrated almost-whine from Dean because he thinks he's going to stop it from happening, then he moves his hand, pulling lightly.

"Tell me one thing that you know," Sam says.

Dean bites at the sheet beneath him, then lifts his head and tosses his sweaty hair back from his face. "I know... you've ruined me," he manages. "I can't... fuck anyone else... because nothing feels more like dying than this."

Sam presses his forehead to Dean's back between his shoulders and fucks him through his orgasm. He feels the warm wet of come on his fingers and strokes his hand on Dean's cock, milking it out of him until he's spent and moaning under him. Dean hisses a curse and pushes Sam's hand away when it gets too sensitive, but keeps moving back into his thrusts.

Sam breathes in Dean's scent, all musk and salt over the smell of leather, cigarettes and sweet clover. He swipes his tongue over the sweaty skin at the back of his neck and shivers to hear Dean whine, almost like a dog. He turns his head to press his cheek to Dean's back, listening to his heartbeat and the way his lungs fill to breathe and hunches his shoulders as he wraps his arms around Dean's waist, holding him tight so he can feel the way their skin slides in their sweat as they move.

He knows exactly what Dean means when he talks about dying like that. It's not light, it's not flippant, it's not an over exaggeration. They've both fucked around, but they've always come back to this. There were a few others for Sam and more than a few for Dean, but they're _both_ ruined for that kind of thing. Maybe from birth, or the way they were raised or maybe just because they want this feeling that's like they're instants away from their hearts stopping the whole time and neither of them can get that with anyone else.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean breathes. He ducks his head and pushes back, riding Sam's steady thrusts hard and fast, his breath hitching with it. "Come on, Sam."

"Shhh, you hush," Sam mutters. He nips Dean's shoulder lightly. "Almost. Are you... tired?"

Dean shakes his head and laughs a little breathlessly. "Fuck, yes, I'm tired," he says, panting.

"Almost," Sam promises. His rhythm falters and the easy sliding thrusts he'd kept up for so long become less easy as the pleasure of it grows inside him. There are sparks and fingers and coiling things in his back and Sam makes a soft sound like a cry lost in a gasp. "Almost," he whispers.

Dean strokes a hand down one of Sam's thighs and grinds his ass back on him, deliberately tightening his body around him. "Such pretty... sounds you make, Sammy," he murmurs. "You always did. Come on now."

With moans caught in his throat like trapped butterflies, Sam thinks how they're not getting younger. All the supernatural shit in the world and they've never even _seen_ the fountain of youth. None of this, even _this_ , ever gets any easier either. And all he can think is it's just going to get harder and one day they'll die like all people who live by violence do: violently.

They're not old by any means, but as he muffles his moans and cries against Dean's back, he feels strange ridges and lines of scar tissue against his lips and knows he has more just like them on his own body. They _are_ maps of scars. Two timelines that sometimes merge. They aren't wrinkled with age, but they are so very worn.

He laughs softly into Dean's hair and tightens his arms around him, fucking him with slow pushes of his hips against his ass. "You had a scar once... on this shoulder," he whispers. He nudges the spot and Dean catches his breath. "I put it there. Shot you by accident."

"With your first gun," Dean whispers back. He turns his head to the side to look over his shoulder at Sam. "You were ten."

Sam licks and bites at the spot, pleasure tightening in his belly like a weight. "I remember," he says. He's glad to know that Dean does, too. Even if Hell is like living a month in a day, he's glad Dean can still remember those little things. Even without all the marks to remember them by.

"Sam," Dean hisses, pushing back against him again. "What... are you doing?"

"Fucking you," Sam says, because obviously.

"Yeah?" Dean reaches back and half twists around to run a hand down Sam's stomach. He pushes his hand back against Sam's belly, his hand trapped between his lower back and Sam's stomach, and pushes against the tightness of the muscle there. "You think too much when you're fucking me. Try just doing it."

Sam chuffs a soft laugh and snaps his hips against Dean's ass. Dean bites down a moan and Sam grits his teeth as a shock of pleasure makes his heart race. He's still feeling that, hanging on to it, when the sensation seems to unravel and fracture through his body. It starts in his spine and in his lower belly, then slips out like warm water to the ends of his fingers and toes as he comes. He tightens his arms around Dean's waist and holds him like he needs him as an anchor. Needs him so he won't fly away in pieces.

Dean moans at the wash of Sam's come within him, at the slick warm slide of him fucking his way through it as both of their bodies are wound tight with exhaustion. "Yes," Dean whispers, turning his head to press his mouth to Sam's cheek, his shoulder, any part of him he can reach with his lips. "Yes, yes, yes," he hisses. He licks Sam's skin and Sam wonders if he's trying to taste the sun on him in that florescent-lit room.

~~*~~

Later that night, closer to morning, Sam crawls out of the bed and goes into the bathroom to shower. He doesn't bother with trying to not wake Dean. Because of what they are, they both sleep lightly and he knows that the more careful he is in getting away, the more disturbed Dean will be by his departure. So he gets out of bed quickly and calmly closes the bathroom door on Dean's eyes, which have followed him.

Standing in the shower with the spray like silver needles on his skin, turning it pink, Sam watches a spider high up near the ceiling crawl out of a crack in the wall. It walks on its spindly, spun glass arachnid legs along the stained, cracked wall. Sam watches it until it starts trying to get up on the showerhead. Then he turns off the water and gets out.

He towels off and is carefully trying not to think about anything. It's not really working though because he's remembering Dean pushing him up on the hood of that car. He's remembering how his back stuck to the warm glass of the windshield from their sweat and burned his skin until he made Dean roll over. Dean still had his shirt, it wouldn't stick to him. He closes his eyes and rubs a hand over his face as he recalls the way it felt to have Dean inside him like that. His first time and he rode Dean on the hood of that car, every fiber of his body alive with the knowledge that he shouldn't, it was wrong, it was dirty, and if their father caught them, he very well may kill them both.

He'd have killed Dean for sure.

Sam snorts laughter and shakes his head back, catching his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He narrows his eyes on his own reflection and sighs.

That's one of his _good_ memories. There aren't really a lot of those from his childhood. If he can be said to have been a child at sixteen.

He wants some of that back, though. Some of that... innocence. He'd rather it was all monsters and dragons and tilting at fucking windmills all over again. But this... this thing is bigger than them now. Bigger than Dean, bigger than Sam, bigger than the great granddaddy king of all dragons. It's not fighting monsters and vampires and ghosts who do little bitty creepy sick things like haunt houses and kill people. Not anymore. Now it's angels and demons and God and Sam's sure, around some corner, there's even a Devil waiting to show himself like a Jack out of a box.

They can't win this one. _This_ is going to kill them. Hell, even if they live, it's going to destroy them both. Dean with his self-righteous sense of black and white will never bend and Sam... If Sam can't get away from this Heaven and Hell bullshit, he's afraid he'll have no choice but to become the thing they both fear he's capable of being.

"It's time to step away," Sam says, speaking softly to himself.

He liked things a lot better when religion was just something _other_ people did on Sundays so as not to piss off God—in the unlikely event that such a creature actually existed. He liked praying when he was sure no one was listening. He liked angels when they were pretty women with breakable wings and decorations to stick on a tree in December.

Sam cocks his head to the side, studying his own reflection. He reaches out and touches the mirror, then puts his hand up to touch his own hair. He twines a lock of it between his fingers and stares at the slivery strands twisted through the chestnut brown. He's got grey in his hair.

For some reason, this makes him laugh.

~~*~~

They go on staying at the MOTEL. So long as Sam has the keys to the Impala, he has Dean right where he wants him. Right there in Las Cruces in that dingy rented room on that well-worn bed. It's twenty bucks a night for his piece of mind, but fuck it.

"You're not going to change my mind, Sammy," Dean says one morning. He's sitting on the bed with the sheet around his waist. Sam's at the table by the window reading the local newspaper.

"You are a stubborn ass," Sam says. That's not really the reaction Dean was hoping for. He frowns and Sam's lips quirk. He turns the page to read the obituaries.

"Give me my damn car keys, Sam," Dean says.

Sam says nothing and shakes his head as he picks up his paper coffee cup to sip.

"Sam."

"Maybe you should get dressed, Dean," Sam says. The curtains are open and across the gravel parking lot, Sam can see an old lady walking her poodle. She's looking their way and walking her dog in their direction.

Dean sits shirtless in front of the window a lot. Sam has no idea why, since he's always cold these days.

"Maybe you should fuck off and give me back my car keys," Dean snaps. "What? I get a fever and suddenly I'm your prisoner?"

"Something like that," Sam says.

"Riiiiight," Dean says. "Until I 'see reason'. Don't think I don't hear that tone in your goddamn voice, Sam."

"Not _reason_ , exactly," Sam says, finally putting the paper down. "But you have to listen. You have to _hear me_."

"I fucking hear you, alright?" Dean says. He throws the sheet off, ignoring the open curtains and the old lady with her dog and anyone else who cares to stare. "I hear you. So what? I already told you. _I know too much to walk away_."

"That's just another excuse and you know it," Sam says calmly. He reaches around to snatch a pair of Dean's jeans off the floor. He throws them at him and Dean catches them in front of his face. "Get dressed. Mrs. Hodgens has a heart condition. You want to be responsible for that?"

Dean opens his mouth like he's going to say something. Probably something like 'Fuck off and die, Sammy'. Then he just closes his mouth and, with a wordless growl, turns and disappears into the bathroom with his pants.

Sam shakes his head. He picks up his paper again and shakes it out. "Drama queen," he mutters.

~~*~~

Sam crawls over Dean's body, the old sheets that have been washed into a grey submission sliding down his back as he moves up the bed. He watches Dean come awake beneath him, going from calm, rhythmic breathing to quicker breaths, relaxed and pliant muscles going tense, eyelids fluttering but not opening. He watches Dean come awake and lifts a hand to run his thumb over the fan of his eyelashes.

This is where things change, Sam thinks tiredly. At the edges of things where all the lines blur. They're laying in bed right now, wrapped up in sheets and the smell of each other, but they're standing at a bloody crossroad. In the borderlands. That's where they are now.

"Come away with me," Sam whispers. He lowers his head to ask it, to _beg_ for it where he can taste Dean's answer before he speaks. "These demons... they'll kill you if you don't kill them. These angels... they will kill you if you don't kill the demons. Either way, you'll go to Hell for being so fucking noble. So will I. So... come. Come with me."

Dean pushes Sam's hand away from his face and opens his eyes. They catch light from somewhere and flash for a second with a liquid glow that Sam wants to put his mouth around and drink from. "I don't understand... _any_ of this," Dean whispers back. He runs a hand through his hair and looks up at the ceiling.

"And do you think _any of this_ cares if you understand it?" Sam asks. His fingers stray to pet at Dean's throat and face. "Do you think it will change at all if you understand it?"

Dean stares back at him and frowns. He sighs and runs his tongue over his bottom lip before sucking it between his teeth. Sam watches him do it and his lips quirk in a little smile.

"We _can_ leave," Sam says. "It's been weeks. There have been no angels come calling in the middle of the night, no demons at our door. There has been nothing. They will let us go, I think, if we... go now. Free will, remember that?"

"I might have heard something about it," Dean says. "So what?"

"Nothing, just..." Sam hesitates, searching for words. "You don't have to be what they want you to be. I don't have to be... what they think I am. We... we can stop. This whole thing can stop right here."

"Demons will still be trying to take over the world if we stop," Dean says. "The things that are happening will still be happening, only without us."

"Exactly," Sam says.

"Without us they'll happen faster," Dean says.

"So? Isn't that God's problem, don't you think?" Sam says. "This is His war being fought over His damn playground and His fucking bug collection; don't you think maybe He should bestir His almighty ass to do some of His own dirty work for a change if He wants to keep it? Because I do. I'm tired, Dean. Aren't you tired?"

"Yes," Dean says, and his voice is full of just how weary he is. It goes deeper than bone. It's a tired that leeches right through to wrap around his soul like a slimy infection. It's been there a long time, festering and now Sam's picking at it. "Yes, I'm tired. Oh, yes."

Sam leans in and nuzzles Dean's throat, licks over his jaw. "I don't even care if I die for it in the end," he murmurs. "I just don't want angels and demons walking over us to get to each other." He becomes silent for a while, listening to Dean's breath as he mouths the curve of his jaw up to his ear. "They will kill me, you know," Sam whispers.

Dean turns his head on the pillow to look at him. "Who will?"

"Your angels," Sam says. "They think they know what I will be. Acting upon it... I will have no choice but to _be_ that. And they will either kill me for it or kill me... because of you."

Dean draws back from him a little to prop himself up on his elbow. "Because of... this?" Dean asks, flicking a finger over a flap of the sheet hanging over Sam's hip. "Because _incest_ is a sin?" Dean says, hissing the word "incest" until it sounds like something lickably sweet.

"Maybe," Sam says, lips curving into a slow grin. "Mostly I think because you would have to fight for them or be with me... and I don't think you'd choose them if I were still alive, do you?"

Dean's eyes narrow. "Well, I wouldn't fucking choose them if they killed you, either," he says, annoyed by the idea. "Give me a little goddamn credit, huh, Sammy?"

Sam cocks his head and his smile slowly slips away. He reaches out to run his hand up Dean's chest, up his neck to cup the back of his head and pull him closer. "You have it," he whispers. "You know you do. But you've seen the same things I've seen. _More_ , probably. You've been at it longer. They have ways... they _all_ have ways. Every deal with every demon made only happens because they have so many ways..."

"Yeah," Dean says. He leans into Sam as Sam pulls his head down and their mouths meet in a chaste kiss that only lasts for a moment before it becomes _more_ , becomes _harder_ , becomes passion and want wrapped up in so much knowledge and awareness that they ache from it.

They're on the edge, walking that line between. In that place where things change. Sam can feel it like a magnetic charge along his skin, raising the fine hairs on his body with its energy.

"Come away with me," Sam begs again. He nips at Dean's mouth, licks over his tongue as Dean licks out to taste the sore spot and pushes him back on the bed. "I love you," he murmurs. "Leave with me. Leave this place. Leave this... life. All of it. We can pretend it never happened if you want. Pretend it never will again."

"For how long, Sam?" Dean asks. He lifts his hands and threads his fingers into Sam's hair, running them straight back to his neck. "How long can we pretend all of that before it follows us to our door? One day you answer the doorbell thinking it's girl scouts and you've got the flaming sword of God at your throat and a devil climbing up your fucking back. What then?"

"Then... we deal with it," Sam says. "We take whatever we can... for as long as we can. We enjoy it. It'll end, sure. But... it's better than having you looking at me through the sight on your gun or over the flat of a blade. I'd rather be fighting them for us than fighting everything else and each other for them, you know?"

"Yeah," Dean says, petting his hands down Sam's shoulders. "I know."

And he does. Sam can hear it in his voice, see it in every line on his face. With every moment that passes, Dean _knows_ and Sam has to wonder how any heavenly creature thought it could win a war such as this with burned-out soldiers like them leading the charge. Burned-out and reluctant to take up arms against each other. It was... a recipe for failure, actually.

It made him wonder. _Wonder_ , but not really care.

"Where will we go?" Dean asks, and Sam's heart races a little faster. "What will we do?" he asks and Sam smiles because he knows he's won. He hears the word 'we' coming so easily from Dean's mouth like that and he knows.

Sam lays down on his side and rests his head on Dean's chest. He can hear everything from there. A thousand sounds inside Dean's body making him live. "I don't know," Sam says. "I... really don't. Isn't that great?"

"Not really," Dean says. He sounds so fretful that Sam snorts laughter and rolls his eyes up to look at him. "I don't know... anything else, Sam. Be... easy on me with this, alright?"

"Easy on you with what?" Sam asks. "With being... normal?"

"Yeah, just... you know. Be gentle," Dean says and even his lips twitch with amusement at how that sounds.

"Right," Sam says. "So, the first time you pull a gun on the mailman, I am not to yell at you."

"Or take my gun," Dean adds.

"Dude, I definitely get to take the gun," Sam says.

Dean scowls down at him. "Fine," he says. "But only that one."

"You'll run out of them eventually," Sam says. "There are paper boys, gardeners, door-to-door salesmen..."

"I'll just buy new ones then," Dean says. "Now go to sleep. We've got to pack tomorrow."

~~*~~

Though travel is mostly all they've ever done, they've both always traveled light. Their combined worldly possessions can fit into two duffel bags that store easily on the floorboard in the back of the Impala. They've been here almost a month and it takes them less than an hour to pack and be ready to go.

As Sam folds his last pair of faded jeans and stuffs them into his bag, he's thinking how maybe that's about to change. He looks over at Dean and smiles a little as he notices there's a hole in the arm of his black t-shirt where the threads are coming apart from the shoulder. He's thinking maybe that'll change too, but even if it does, he's always going to think of Dean in clothes with patches and holes.

Dean looks up and catches Sam watching him. There's a guarded moment when he doesn't return Sam's smile, but then his expression softens and his lips curve as he yanks the zip closed on his own duffle. "You know we can't be brothers anymore, don't you?" he says.

Sam blinks at him. "What?"

"If we're in this together, I mean," Dean says.

Sam notes a wariness in the way Dean's eyes slide away from him and his frown deepens. "Why wouldn't we be?" he asks. "Man, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about incest being one of those sins you get arrested for," Dean says. He sits down on the bed beside his bag and takes out a cigarette. He watches Sam over the flame of his lighter as he takes his first drag. "So we've got to be the cute, unoffending gay guys who live next door and are totally not related to each other."

Sam's eyebrows shoot up.

Dean flicks his wrist to close the lid on his Zippo and squirms around to put it back in his pocket. "Don't look at me like that. I don't like it anymore than you do," he says. "But I like the alternative way the fuck less."

"I am not wearing a cardigan or calling you honey," Sam says.

Dean grins and wiggles his eyebrows. "Yeah, but I might call you baby and slap your ass... in front of other people."

Sam sighs and shakes his head. "That doesn't sound cute and inoffensive," he says. "That sounds like we'll end up with all the neighborhood stay-at-home moms lurking outside the windows trying to get a peek."

The grin disappears. "We'll get curtains," he says, and stands up, hefting his bag over his shoulder.

Sam snorts, trying to imagine him and Dean in any situation where they would be picking out curtains. It startles him a little that it's not as hard to imagine as he would have thought.

Dean reaches the door, realizes that Sam hasn't followed him, and turns back. "You coming or what, Sammy?"

"Do you think we'll ever forget?" he asks. He clenches his hands together between his knees and looks down at them, fingers laced, knuckles scarred. "Do you think... maybe some day... I won't know how to kill a vampire? Or exorcise a spirit? Or remember the words to say to cast out a demon?"

He really wants Dean to say yes. He desperately wants to be told that one day, he'll be normal, even if that means he'll be ignorant. Someday he'll have so much normal in him that hunting monsters will seem like a joke to him, too. He wants Dean to say, 'Yeah, on day you'll be able to lay down for a nap without spreading salt on the windowsill. Someday... not too far away... you'll invite a guest into our house and it'll never cross your mind to drip holy water in their first cocktail.' _Lie to me, Dean_ , he thinks fiercely.

"Not unless you get hit in the head real hard," Dean says. At the way Sam's shoulders tense, Dean sighs. "That's not what you wanted to hear, huh?"

"Not really, no," Sam says. He looks up and smiles tiredly. "It's honest, though."

"Come on, man, let's go," Dean says, jerking his head at the door.

"Yeah," Sam says. He throws his bag over his shoulder and squares his shoulders, trying his best to look happy.

"Quit being such a sissy," Dean says, teasing him. He takes a last drag of his cigarette and reaches over on top of the little mini fridge where they set the ashtray to crush it out. "Open the door."

Sam goes around him and opens the door, then freezes.

"Ah, shit," Dean growls, glaring at Castiel, who's standing there on the threshold like he belongs there. "The fuck do you want?"

Sam just stares at him and takes a step back, shifting the strap of his duffel on his shoulder.

Castiel acknowledges him with a tilt of his head before moving his gaze back to Dean. "Something... has happened."

"You ever hear of knocking?" Dean says, like he hasn't heard a thing.

Sam closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He briefly ponders the benefits of praying to the God who _sent_ this angel to their door in the first place. He finds it ironic, but not the least bit funny.

"You are needed," Castiel says. He says it like that should be all that is required to have Dean coming to heel. "Something has happened and we require your help."

"Yeah? What do you need?" Dean says. "A ride to the Seven Eleven? You got gas money in that trench coat?"

"I understand that you cannot help yourself, but this is no time to be facetious," Castiel says sternly.

Dean lifts a brow. "Who's being facetious?" he says, and crowds his way by Castiel out the door. "You want a ride or not?"

Sam blinks after them in surprise and doesn't move. "Dean."

Dean looks at him over his shoulder and smiles a little, then winks and keeps walking. "Let's go, Sammy," he calls back to him.

Sam stares after him until Castiel steps into his line of sight and follows after Dean down the sidewalk. "This is not a game, Dean Winchester," he says. "This is a war. _The_ war. There will never be another one that matters more."

"Not my war," Dean says. He goes around the Impala and opens one of the back doors to lay his duffel inside. "I'm retiring."

Castiel looks surprised.

Sam narrows his eyes on him and thinks the angel is faking it.

He doesn't say a word. He just follows Dean's example and tosses his bag in the back of the car.

"You can't do that," Castiel says. "There will never _be_ another war if we do not win this one. Humanity will... become extinct."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Dean says. He leans against the side of the car and stares at the angel with his arms crossed over his chest. "Did you miss the first part of the words that just came out of your own mouth? There will never be another war. What the hell's so bad about that?"

Castiel frowns. "The world will end if you do not do this," he says.

Sam rests his forearms on the roof of the car and waits. He doesn't say anything, just watches them, waiting to see what Dean will do. It's up to Dean, it always has been and he hates that his happiness or misery hinges ultimately on what Dean will decide to do now.

Sam looks at his brother and admires the way the sun touches his light hair, catching flashes of copper and gold. He follows the line of his jaw to his mouth and his own lips twitch as he remembers tasting orange flavored lip balm on his mouth the first time he kissed him. Sam watches the way every thought is weighed in Dean's quick mind as it passes and remembers the look on his face all those years ago when they finally climbed down off the hood of the car.

Dean had looked at him without shame or apology as he shrugged back into his shirt and zipped up his pants. Sam remembers being so afraid that he wouldn't want to look at him at all, but that never happened. Dean had followed him with his eyes before. Fucking him didn't change that. It was as Dean sat there on the ground by the car, tying his shoes, that Sam felt the way he loved him change forever. That was the moment he fell _in_ love. He _knew_ then and he also knew that one day... one day it would probably destroy him.

"Have you heard a word I've said?" Castiel finally demands of Dean.

"Oh, I've heard you," Dean says. "Have _you_?"

Castiel sighs and Sam thinks how funny that is because it's something he obviously picked up.

"This is what you are meant to do," Castiel says.

"You know, I really don't want to hear that," Dean says. He opens the driver’s side door. "Get in, Sam."

Sam opens his door, his heart thundering in his chest, in his throat, making his hands shake. "Dean..."

"Just get in, Sammy," Dean says. His voice is pitched low and soothing when he speaks to him. "Free will. You told me, remember?"

Sam swallows thickly and nods, then gets in the car.

"The purpose of every living thing on this planet is to continue living and help the planet continue living," Castiel says. "This is your purpose. You're a protector and you're needed now. You have to—"

"I don't have to do _anything_ ," Dean snaps, leaning over the top of the car door. "Unlike you walking, talking feather dusters, I have a soul. Not a very clean one. Not in real great condition, but I got it. Which means I have free will. Which means I can tell you to go fuck yourself and there isn't anything you can do about it."

"Oh, I could do... so many things," Castiel says, voice becoming a little menacing.

"Yeah, but you can't make _me_ do anything," Dean says. "You're God's soldiers. Go fight," he says, making shooing motions with his hands as he gets in the car.

"People will _die_ ," Castiel says, and he _almost_ raises his voice.

In the end, Sam wonders if it would matter if he _did_. If Castiel were to shout would it make a difference? Would it change Dean's mind?

He puts his hand out across the space between them and lays it on Dean's thigh. He flexes his fingers once, drawing Dean's gaze to him for a second.

"People will die. All around the world they'll die, killed by the things you've worked your whole life to destroy and defend against," Castiel says. " _Everyone_ will die and you'll watch it before it finally comes for you as well."

Dean grits his teeth and looks back at Castiel as he puts the car in gear. "I don't care," he says flatly and the Impala backs out of the parking lot.

When they're out on the road, Sam looks up, expecting to see Castiel standing there with the wind flapping his coat. There's nothing there.

Dean doesn't look that direction at all. He drives. For a long time, he drives and gradually the tension slides away from the muscles of his arms and shoulders. His knuckles aren't white on the steering wheel. Eventually he stops looking in the rear view mirror every thirty seconds and rubbing his hand over the spot on his thigh where Sam squeezed. Gradually, he breathes a little easier when nothing happens and a lightning bolt doesn't fly from the sky and slam into the road in front of them.

He reaches across Sam to open the glove box and puts Tom Petty into the tape player.

Sam catches his eye and Dean smiles for him and Sam thinks _maybe_ this won't break him after all.

 

 

**XXX**


End file.
